“Instant Messenger” (IM) or “chat” online services (such as Yahoo Instant Messenger®, MSN Messenger®, IBM Sametime®, AOL Automatic Instant Messaging (AIM)®, etc.) have become a primary mode of communication between computer users to allow instantaneous (or “real-time”) conversation between them over networked mediums such as the Internet. IM/chat applications can often accommodate a wide range of uses ranging from corporate/business purposes to product support applications to personal and/or entertainment uses. However, current technology exhibits significant disadvantages relating to communications involving managing multiple IM user identification codes (user IDs) possessed by an individual user in cases where each ID is used for accessing a different IM/chat system and/or session.
Although certain IM/chat software products possess features that allow a sender to manage multiple user IDs for each person to whom a message is sent (receivers), no capability is provided for a receiver to manage his or her own multiple user IDs by linking each different ID regardless of the particular IM/chat or email system and/or session being accessed. For example, there is no mechanism for a message receiver to manage each of his or her different user IDs (i.e., if the MSN Messenger® ID for a user is “jdoe56” whereas the IBM Sametime® and Yahoo Instant Messenger® IDs are both “janedoe” and the AOL AIM® ID for that user is “janed”) by linking (or “mapping”) each user ID together to allow a message sender to access any of them irrespective of the IM/chat system or email account being used.
The concept of linking multiple user IDs to one contact alias is implemented from the message sender (but not the receiver) perspective in certain prior art IM/chat software products (such as Trillian, GAIM, IMTiger, Complete Messenger, Kopete, Federated Identity Management (FIM), Hailstorm and Jabber XCP, etc.) which lacks the advantage of requiring only the receiver to know and control mapping of his or her user IDs. The prior art also does not allow the receiver to configure the mappings to remove or restrict the use of any ID when necessary.